Engaging Fathers in Child Welfare Practice - From Assessments to Services

Background: Evidence from the 2003 Illinois Child and Family Service Review process has pointed to a lack of contact with and engagement of fathers as a key concern for improvement. One way in which Illinois has sought to improve practice is through the Integrated Assessment (IA) program. Launched in 2005, the IA program is designed to provide better information about child and family strengths, support systems, and service needs. In this study, we examine the extent to which fathers—stepfathers, putative fathers, legal fathers, adoptive fathers, or biological fathers—were interviewed as a part of the IA process and the factors associated with fathers being interviewed. Qualitative data are used to examine the extent to which these assessments and service plans are responsive to fathers' needs.

Methods: Between 2005 and 2008, integrated assessments were completed for over 9,000 children. Data from these cases include information on the completion and timing of assessment interviews with parents as well as demographic characteristics and permanency outcomes. Findings from administrative data are coupled with findings from qualitative data, including a random sample of 49 narrative assessment reports and interviews with 22 caseworkers who completed the IA process with a clinical screener. Analysis of quantitative data employed logistic regression and survival analyses, and qualitative data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach.

Results: A father was interviewed in 45 percent of the IA cases, increasing from 40.5 percent in 2005 to 55.4 percent in 2008. Child's age and race, type of placement, prior placements, and the geographic region predicted with whether one, both, or neither parent was interviewed. Despite the in-depth information gathered regarding fathers' circumstances and behaviors, and caseworkers' reports that many fathers were willing to engage in services, the degree to which the assessments and service plans are reflective of and responsive to fathers' needs and circumstances varied. Along with therapeutic recommendations to address behaviors and relationship dynamics, fathers were often required (or reminded) to comply with probation requirements and also undergo further assessments. Although many of these fathers need housing and employment, caseworkers themselves acknowledged a paucity of resources or an inability of the child welfare system to leverage resources to address these problems. Children in the group where both a mother and father were interviewed were 3.2 times more likely to be reunified than children in the group in which neither parent was interviewed. When only one parent was interviewed the likelihood of reunification was 2.4 times greater than when neither parent was interviewed.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings from this study reinforce the importance of engaging fathers early in the assessment process. However, they also raise questions about the logistics of participation in multiple services and consistently engaging fathers for the duration of those services. The fact that multiple services are being simultaneously recommended for an individual father also raises questions about coordination across providers and whether there is any evidence on service effectiveness to guide the order in which these services are put in place.